Bcci Files Defamation Suit Against Outlook, Prabhakar

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has filed a defamation suit in Bombay High Court against former Indian all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar and the weekly, `Outlook, seeking damages of Rs 5 crore.

Prabhakar had alleged in an interview to the magazine last year that there was betting and match-fixing in Indian cricket and he was offered a bribe of Rs 25 lakh by a teammate to perform below par and for sabotaging the match in Pakistans favour during the 1994 Singer Series in Sri Lanka.

The board, in turn, appointed former Chief Justice of India Y V Chandrachud to head a one-man commissions probe into the charges. The latter gave a clean chit to the Indian cricketers by rejecting the charges of betting and match-fixing as imaginary and unrealistic in his 94-page report to BCCI.

 

Justice Chandrachud also pulled up Prabhakar for refusing to disclose the name of the teammate whom he had alleged to have tried to bribe him during his deposition before the one-man commission.

The suit, filed by BCCI secretary J Y Lele as the plaintiff, has Prabhakar as one of the defendants along with

Hathway Investments Ltd., (Outlooks owners), Deepak Shourie (its president and publisher), Vinod Mehta (its editor) and its staff reporters Aniruddha Bahal and Krishna Prasad.

BCCI, which filed the suit through well-known Mumbai solicitors Mulla and Mulla, has prayed to the court after paying court fee of Rs 75,000 that the defendants be ordered and decreed to jointly and/or severely pay to plaintiff:

l A sum of Rs 5 crore with interest thereon at the rate of 18 per cent per annum from the date of filing the suit

(January 28, 1998) till payment.

l For the cost of the suit.

l For such further and other relief as the nature and circumstances of the case may require.

Contacted in Baroda, Lele tried to evade the issue saying I do not know about it.

When queried how the BCCI solicitors had filed the case with him as the plaintiff and without his knowledge, Lele admitted, I know they were to file it. But I do not know whether they have already done it.

BCCIs working committee had been authorised to deal with the issue after Justice Chandrachuds probe commission had submitted its report.

For a brief while the board toyed with the idea of appointing a three-member committee with president Raj Singh Dungarpur heading it to decide whether Prabhakar had brought disrepute to the game and, if found guilty, to withhold the benevolent fund amount due to him from the board instead of filing a suit.